Starting Year 12 in a week or so NEED TIPS

Year 12s coming up for me (Term 4), didn't do the best for my subjects in preliminary, but then again I didn't put as much effort and will absolutely turn things around from now on. Here are some of my marks accordingly, including the average of my school (Rank 3):

My ATAR goal is 98+ at the moment my school's average is like 98.15, so I just need to average at least, but I wanna potentially top it for all my subjects, but I am kinda worried about Chemistry (hopefully tutoring will fix that). Do you guys have any suggestions and tips on how I should start my YEAR 12 WITH A BANG?

Re: Starting Year 12 in a week or so NEED TIPS

Well you have one week to go pretty much before Year 12 starts so for Maths I'd recommend you go ahead and practice some topics that you lost marks for in your preliminary exams because you'll need it for Year 12, if you're really committed you can try and learn ahead but even relearning past content will keep you sharp. If you run out of materials look to do other school's preliminary papers.

For English I'd definitely read your text that you'll cover in Term 1, if you have no idea what it is then I'd probably make an effort to watch or read a noteworthy book and rough up some analysis for it through online research as this could be a nice way to stay sharp yet again and get you an extra text you could potentially use. I legitimately spend my Year 11 - 12 break watching as many classic films as possible (godfather, shawshank, memento, etc) and I found that was nice because it boosted my understanding of themes.

For your Sciences I'd consider just preparing yourself to be more organised and focusing from day 1 as soon as school starts.

Hi, my name's Martin and I'm a 2013 Graduate of The King's School having achieved an ATAR of 98.85 and Full Academic Colours. I study at the University of Sydney doing a Bachelor of Commerce (Liberal Studies).

Currently, I run a tutoring centre together with a team of talented tutors specialising specifically in Mathematics, English and Science. If you're interested you can check our website out at www.ssedu.com.au to find out more!

Re: Starting Year 12 in a week or so NEED TIPS

The BEST BEST BEST thing you can in terms of studying is definitely organising everything you do in class to the syllabus. I am currently studying for my HSC exams (eek!) and pre-trials I was scrambling around trying to get my notes to correspond with the topics. For your subjects, studying in year 12 = studying for the HSC exam. The questions they ask you come straight from the syllabus.

The only subject (besides English Adv) I do that you do/have done is modern history, so I'll just use that as an example. If you decide to keep it (it gets better! trust me! I did terribly in modern in year 11 - can't remember ranks but maybe got 60% in yearly exam - and now I'm ranked first and my trial mark was 90%+. Also, if you are worried about the huge amount of essays, they are completely different to English Adv. I average a B/C in English if you get the idea hahaha)

Back to study tips, in modern the Core is WWI and you are likely to start learning that right away. So if you learn it in order of the syllabus, you would go home and put your notes under the first dot point "the reasons for the stalemate on the Western Front". And then continue this throughout the year. TRUST ME when I say this:
Doing this bit by bit, week by week or whenever you finish a topic/dot point is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH (x1000000) BETTER than doing this the week before your trial. Learn from my mistake of not doing this, you can avoid the huge load of stress :P
This also gives you an excellent way to revise, as you can clearly see what you have already learnt. Lets just say you're in Week 7 of year 12 and you have learned the first three Modern Core subheadings. When you add in your new notes for he fourth subheading, you can revise all the way back to Week 1. Again, acknowledge the emphasis... this is WAY WAY WAY WAY (you get the idea) BETTER than doing this the week/night/morning before your trial. As I said, what you learn in class should be (obviously depends on teacher/note taking/resources etc.) enough to revise with, and by looking back to Week 1,2,3,4,5 etc you'll drill it into your head.

You should be able to do that with all the other subjects (I haven't studied them though so I'm not 100% sure) but if you get the gist, just keep your notes organised throughout the year. Don't wait, do it straight away! If in Week 1 you've only learnt enough to form a page of notes, study time will only be 10 minutes. Then in Week 2, another paragraph so maybe 20 minutes etc. Remember that by Week 7, you'll have revised the previous week's notes that much that you wouldn't need ten minutes on each page, especially for Week 1,2,3. 7 pages doesn't have to equal 70 minutes on one subject, maybe 2 minutes Week 1, 2, 5 minutes 3, 4, 10 minutes 5,6,7 etc. This is just an example.

Anyway I hope this helps. This was a really long way of answering your question (sorry!) but looking back one of my biggest regrets is not having organised notes and revising them continuously... essentially I will be relearning everything in 3 weeks (Yep, i should have given myself my own advice... ugh)

Re: Starting Year 12 in a week or so NEED TIPS

Originally Posted by HamBurr17

The BEST BEST BEST thing you can in terms of studying is definitely organising everything you do in class to the syllabus. I am currently studying for my HSC exams (eek!) and pre-trials I was scrambling around trying to get my notes to correspond with the topics. For your subjects, studying in year 12 = studying for the HSC exam. The questions they ask you come straight from the syllabus.

The only subject (besides English Adv) I do that you do/have done is modern history, so I'll just use that as an example. If you decide to keep it (it gets better! trust me! I did terribly in modern in year 11 - can't remember ranks but maybe got 60% in yearly exam - and now I'm ranked first and my trial mark was 90%+. Also, if you are worried about the huge amount of essays, they are completely different to English Adv. I average a B/C in English if you get the idea hahaha)

Back to study tips, in modern the Core is WWI and you are likely to start learning that right away. So if you learn it in order of the syllabus, you would go home and put your notes under the first dot point "the reasons for the stalemate on the Western Front". And then continue this throughout the year. TRUST ME when I say this:
Doing this bit by bit, week by week or whenever you finish a topic/dot point is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH (x1000000) BETTER than doing this the week before your trial. Learn from my mistake of not doing this, you can avoid the huge load of stress :P
This also gives you an excellent way to revise, as you can clearly see what you have already learnt. Lets just say you're in Week 7 of year 12 and you have learned the first three Modern Core subheadings. When you add in your new notes for he fourth subheading, you can revise all the way back to Week 1. Again, acknowledge the emphasis... this is WAY WAY WAY WAY (you get the idea) BETTER than doing this the week/night/morning before your trial. As I said, what you learn in class should be (obviously depends on teacher/note taking/resources etc.) enough to revise with, and by looking back to Week 1,2,3,4,5 etc you'll drill it into your head.

You should be able to do that with all the other subjects (I haven't studied them though so I'm not 100% sure) but if you get the gist, just keep your notes organised throughout the year. Don't wait, do it straight away! If in Week 1 you've only learnt enough to form a page of notes, study time will only be 10 minutes. Then in Week 2, another paragraph so maybe 20 minutes etc. Remember that by Week 7, you'll have revised the previous week's notes that much that you wouldn't need ten minutes on each page, especially for Week 1,2,3. 7 pages doesn't have to equal 70 minutes on one subject, maybe 2 minutes Week 1, 2, 5 minutes 3, 4, 10 minutes 5,6,7 etc. This is just an example.

Anyway I hope this helps. This was a really long way of answering your question (sorry!) but looking back one of my biggest regrets is not having organised notes and revising them continuously... essentially I will be relearning everything in 3 weeks (Yep, i should have given myself my own advice... ugh)

Thank you for your response! Kinda motivated me little hehe, I decided not to take Modern cuz no matter how much I tried I never got 90%+, whereas in biology I barely studied and still think i did relatively alright, plus I like the subject more. Anyways good luck! (I should be saying that to myself rip)

Re: Starting Year 12 in a week or so NEED TIPS

Heres some advice I gave to another user on the chemistry and physics subjects:Band 6

For English I did a lot of research on the texts (not just what teachers say to read it twice or whatever) like looking at ideas and analysing it in a way that flowed well with good language and specific quotes and techniques, wasn't generic (everyone tends to use the same type of arguments for example like in mod A that texts show the value of the context, but you have to try and show it in a way that addresses different parts of the rubric like the importance of techniques specific to a text type i.e. camera and lighting stuff for movies and for a play like asides and stuff, making direct distinctions between like the type of language used. for instance in Shakespeare King Richard he uses christian imagery and demons and stuff, while Pacino in looking for Richard looks at the same theme of manipulation and power but addresses it through the characters becoming politicians so he can relate the text to his specific audience which is American people, while in Shakespeare's its English 16th century. So pretty much by paying attention to these kinds of things, no matter what the question is on the exam day you should be able to adapt ur essay to the question because you have based on essay on the rubric and the ideas that link to that rather than just random themes that might link, because the question most of the time is just a straight sentence from the rubric with maybe a quote from somewhere else

For short answers, honestly didn't do that much study apart from memorising techniques and knowing key phrases from the discovery rubric, because if you have already like written essays from scratch using quotes and techniques for other sections, you already know how to analyse a text and just have to do that on a smaller scale with the texts they give u.

For maths just do the textbook exercises to learn the basic concepts like the formulas and types of questions they can ask, and then go onto past papers from selective schools to improve your timing, ability to spot errors and solve different types of questions

Re: Starting Year 12 in a week or so NEED TIPS

Here are my tips by subject.

English Adv:
Read read read, that is the key make sure your discovery text is read before you start year 12 as it helps a lot (time and understanding wise) and make sure you print and annotate the discovery rubric too there are some great threads on that. Start also making a word doc of english techniques for section 1. If you want start either essay reading of other top students and breaking them down or start your creative (I did the latter one).

Chemistry:
Start production of materials or the topic your school does first, thats it start making notes and going through the topic, you can easily finish 75% of the notes for topic 1 well if you just do 1-2 hours a day of chemistry. As the first topic is not as hard and there are pretty good videos and resources online for it. If you want start by doing easy to medium MC to consolidate knowledge in these weeks.

Biology:
Start with the topic your school does first or maintaining a balance as that is the first one in the syllabus if you are unsure. Get a good bio textbook I used bio in focus and read it and understand it make notes, make sure they are succinct as this subject does require you to read over them many times and do some MC.

Maths:
Revise prelim and start the first topic of your source by practice textbooks questions.

Some other stuff:
- Dont over exert you have a year to go keep it paced.
- Make sure you decide either hand write or type notes and information and stick to it.
- GET ORGANISED, this is very important as you want to know what you have and where.
- Collect resources online and look around as you can find some good website for paper and notes.